One of the major modes of discourse, argumentation can be applied to
virtually all assignments involving critical reasoning no matter the
subject or discipline. As it involves a higher level of reasoning than
associated with descriptive writing, or narrative writing, or expository
writing per se, it is crucial for the successful university-level student to
understand and master the principles, indeed the concepts that drive the
critical thinking skills associated with argumentative writing.

The argumentative essay shares many characteristics with the
expository essay. The argument also consists of an introduction, body and
conclusion. It also is built around a major premise (in this instance, called
the Proposition rather than the Thesis Statement). Additionally, there is
a definite pattern of organization used in developing the argument. But
before delving more deeply into this, let us go to the fundamentals.

What Is An "Argument?"

First, one must be familiar with the terminology. In this instance, the
term argument refers to "a reasoned attempt to convince the audience to
accept a particular point of view about a debatable topic." Looking more
closely at this definition, we observe that the argument is not irrational;
it does not depend strictly on passion or emotion. Rather, argumentation
represents a "reasoned attempt," that is, an effort based on careful
thinking and planning where the appeal is to the mind, the intellect of the
audience at hand. Why? The answer to this is that one wants to "convince
the audience to accept a particular point of view."

The key concept here is "to convince the audience," that is, you must
make them believe your position, accept your logic and evidence. Not only
do you want them to accept the evidence, but you want that audience to
accept "a particular point of view" -- that point of view, or perspective, is
yours. It is your position, your proposition. Understand that all too often
the audience may be intrigued by the evidence presented, but that intrigue
alone is not enough to convince them of the validity or authority of your
position in the matter.

You want the audience to accept your point of view about the topic
whether it is gun control, safe sex, or stiffer prison sentences for
criminal offenders no matter what age. Finally, there must be "a debatable
topic" present for a true argument to develop.

What is debatable? One cannot, for example, debate whether or not the Los
Angeles Dodgers won the 1988 World Series or that Dodger pitcher Orel
Hershiser won the Most Valuable Player Award for that particular World
Series. One cannot debate the fact that the Chicago Bulls won three
consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) championships from
1991-1993 or that Evander Holyfield, while losing his heavyweight
champion of the world title to Riddick Bowe in 1992 was able to regain
the title 11 months later in 1993 at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Those are indisputable facts. One cannot debate the fact that Rev. Jesse
Louis Jackson lost the 1988 bid for the Democratic Party's Presidential
nomination to Michael Dukakis. That also is fact.

One can debate, however, what the concept of "Freedom" means to those
Black South Africans living under apartheid. One can certainly debate
whether or not high school administrators should ban the wearing of
baseball caps by students to school as was the case in the San Fernando
Valley during the 1988 school year in an effort to nip gang violence in the
bud as being effective or over-reaching boundaries. Again, the key
principle here is that the topic must be one which has at least two sides
-- Pro (those in favor of the proposition under discussion) and Con (those
who are against the Proposition as stated).

The Proposition

Now that we understand what the term argument refers to, we move to the
fact that every argument must have a Proposition -- this is the major
premise of the argument and classically will have at least three (3)
major claims on which it is to be built.

Example

The negative image of the African American male can be directly traced to
the historic stereotyping of a racist white mentality evidenced in motion
pictures, in literature and in popular American folklore.

Note here that the major premise is that the negative image of the African
American male can be directly traced to the historic stereotyping of a
racist white mentality. But to develop this proposition, the person must
show through evidence (1) negative images in motion pictures, (2) negative images in American literature, and (3) negative images of African
American males in popular American folklore. What you want to keep in mind,
irrespective of the position you might be advancing, is to formulate a clearly stated proposition. There must be no ambiguity about your proposition.
You also want to indicate within that proposition how you intend to support or
develop it. And finally, you want to do so within one complete
sentence that carries a subject and a verb.

Evidence in Argumentation

To support your proposition, one must present evidence. There are two (2)
types of evidence used in argumentation : fact(s) and opinion(s). Facts
consist of items that can be verified or proven. There are at least four (4)
categories of facts:

By Scientific Measurement -- one measures the extent of an
earthquake not by how "it felt," but rather how it measured on the
Richter Scale. In track and field, one commonly finds the Accutron used
to time running events in thousandths of a second and the more accurate
metric system used in field events such as the long jump or javelin
throw;

By the Way Nature Works -- we know that the sun rises in the east
and sets in the west; that water flows downhill, not uphill; that cloud
formations indicate specific weather patterns;

By Observation -- in courts of law, this would consist of eyewitness
testimony. In research, this might consist of a longitudinal study of a
phenomenom carried out over a period of 3-5 years involving several
hundreds or thousands of cases looking for and recording similarities
and differences; and

By Statistics -- to note that for the year 1988, crimes of violence in
the United States increased 9.2 percent from 1987 -- from 112,598 reported
cases to 122,957 (a gain of 10,359 crimes). While this is a hypothetical example,
one sees the approach used.

The second type of evidence that can be utilized in an argument is
opinion. In this instance, we are not talking about your personal opinion
(the audience already knows your position in the matter!). Nor are we
talking about the way you friend might feel about the issue. That would
surely be inadmissable in a court of law. Rather, the type of opinion we
deal with here is expert opinion -- the opinions expressed by an established
authority in the field. If the topic is child abuse patterns, then one
may wish to cite a child psychologist who has published on the subject or
the head of a group like Parents Anonymous that has dedicated itself to
reducing and/or eliminating child abuse. The opinion(s) cited must be
credible.

It is in presenting your evidence that you are, in fact, developing the Body
of your argument. Keep in mind that in putting forth your Proposition, you
do so in your introductory paragraphs. In developing that Introduction, you
want to get the attention of the audience -- so again, make effective use
of the various opening strategies. That evidence, be it fact or opinion,
must be present in each of the three planks you put forth to develop and
support your proposition. You want to make ample use of examples and
illustrations along the way, bringing your proposition to life before the
audience, painting word-pictures so that they can see, hear and feel what
you are advancing to them. You want to convince, not merely inform!

Fallacious Reasoning

One area often overlooked by those engaged in argumentation, even the
more practised, consists of fallacies. A fallacy is best described as
illogical reasoning. There are many reasons why this can occur, but in this
section we will single out some of the more important fallacies in hopes
that you will memorize what they are, avoid them in your arguments, and
be able to spot them in the arguments presented by others.

Hasty generalization occurs when you come to a conclusion based on
too few examples or insufficient data. You might call this "jumping to conclusions."
By the same token, when taken to the extreme we find that the
hasty generalization becomes stereotyping when the actions or traits of
a few are generalized to take in an entire group. Stereotyping can be mean,
even vicious. Think of various ethnic stereotypes associated with African
Americans, Asians, Hispanics and Jews.

Begging the Question takes place when you assume as a basic premise
something that needs to be proven, for example:

Inner city schools are inferior to suburban schools.

Black colleges are inferior to major state-run universities.

The Black Athlete is naturally superior to others.

Evading the Question happens when you move from the real issue and
begin discussing something else. Imagine that the District Attorney in a
streetgang homicide case implicates the single parent mother as a defendant
as well for failing to know the whereabouts of her son. Or, asserting
that racism in America is no longer a problem with the gains made by
African Americans in electoral politics when the issue is the chronic,
longtime double-digit unemployment of adult African American males.
This type of fallacy will also involve name calling as when you accuse
your opponent of being a wife beater or alcoholic rather than sticking with
the issues. Avoid this. It distracts from your argument and is dishonest.

Finally, there is argumentum ad hominem. This occurs when you direct
your argument to the prejudices and instincts of the crowd, of the mob,
rather than dealing with the real issue(s). For example, in speaking to a
group of welfare recipients about their tenant rights, you base your argument
on the indignities they may have suffered rather than educating them
to the problem(s) at hand and what they can do about these.

As you can see, to properly develop an argument calls for time, it calls for
research, it calls for careful thinking and planning. It also makes certain
demands on you relative to ethics -- that is, you want to always be truthful when addressing the issues, you want to avoid deceit or the appearance
of deception, yours is the burden of maintaining credibility at all times.
This is not easy but as you go along, one gains experience and confidence.

Anticipating Objections

All too often do we fall in love with our point of view to the extent that
we forget our own humanity -- that is, all humans will err. No one can
make a claim to absolute truth on an issue. One must always contend with
the shadow of a doubt. So long as this is true, then you must be conscious
of the fact that your opponent may have very valid objections to your proposition.
You should try to anticipate, to think of the possible objections
that can be made against your argument. Not only that, but those good
practicioners of the art will incorporate those objections into their
argument and answer them along the way. This is very impressive. Not only
have you, so to speak, stolen some of your opponent's thunder, but you have
also made a very positive impression on your audience/your reader. For
that audience is now saying to itself, "Wow, this person has really done
his/her homework!"

The incorporation of these possible objections can occur all along the de-
velopment of your argument. They can appear in each and every one of your
support planks to your proposition and can then be reiterated at the summary.
And it is in the Summary, which is the term used to refer to the conclusion of the argumentative essay, that one wraps everything up in convincing the reader(s) of
your point of view.

The Closing Strategies

Nowhere is it more true than with the argumentative essay that you want
to close strongly! The fact is that you not only want the audience to hear
you; you also want them to believe you and, where needed, take action on
what they have heard. To that end, the argumentative essay will certainly
draw from the eight different strategies that exist to conclude. You may
wish to use a combination of these strategies as you make your
presentation of proof. With the thought in mind that this paper carries ample
evidence, make certain to observe the guidelines for documentation. For
those in the social sciences, there are both APA and ASA guidelines that
do exist and can be studied. The same applies for those in the humanities
with the Modern Language Association.

Discussion

In this presentation, we have examined some of the basic principles that
surround the argumentative mode of discourse. For those concerned with
arguing as a social process, then concern must certainly be paid to certain
communication rules as you are not verbally assaulting someone but
rather, as noted earlier, making a rational appeal to the audience to accept
a particular point of view based upon a claim supported by evidence. Those
Speech Communication scholars will point out that there are four social
conventions which govern any argument. As Douglas Ehninger points out,
"That is, when you decide to argue with another person, you are making,
generally, commitments to four standards of judgment:"

Convention of Bilaterality: Argument is explicitly bilateral: it
requires at least two people or two competing messages. The arguer,
implicitly or explicitly, is saying that he or she is presenting a message
that can be examined by others. A spokesperson for the National Urban
League, for example, assumes that designation and puts forth that
organization's proposed solution(s) to certain social problems that America is
faced with in oppostion to solutions offered by others. In doing so, the
National Urban League specifically calls for counterargument so that a
middle ground may be reached.

Convention of Self-Risk: In argument, there is always the risk of
being proven wrong. For example, when you argue that a federal public
school system is preferable to a state- or local-based public school
system, you invite the possibility that your opponent will convince you
that local or neighborhood-controlled schools present fewer bureaucratic
problems and more benefits than does federal control. Keep in mind that
the public has been invited to carefully evaluate both arguments, that the
public eye can and will expose your weakenesses as well as those of your
opponent.

The Fairness Doctrine: Our system of government, from the
community level up to the Congress itself, is based upon the "fairness
doctrine." This, in itself, presents the following concept: the idea that
debate (argument) ought to be as extended and as complete as possible in
order to guaranteee that all viewpoints are aired, considered, and
defended. In my classroom when students debate, equal time is given to
both sides even if one side chooses not to use all the time allotted, or
fails to use all the available time. This is different, however, from how
that time is used -- that is, the effectiveness with which a party is able
to utilize the time it is given.

Commitment to Rationality: When you argue or debate, a
commitment is made to proceed with logic. When you make an assertion,
you are saying, "This is what I believe and these are my reasons for that
belief." As a debater, your commitment is to giving evidence, examples,
data in support of your assertion -- reasons that you believe fully support
your claim and should be accepted by the audience or the doubtful. For
example, when you argue that handguns should be banned by law, someone
else has the right to say "No" (the convention of bilaterality) and the right
to put forth a contrary (i.e., "Con") proposition (the fairness doctrine).
Furthermore, all parties to the argument -- the doubtful, the audience, the
person or parties you are debating with -- have the right to ask, "Why do
you believe that?" (the convention of rationality). Argument, accordingly,
is a rational form of communication in the sense that all debaters believe
they have good reasons for the acceptance of their assertions. They are, in
fact, obligated to provide those reasons; they cannot get away with
saying,"Oh, I don't know -- I just feel that it's true. That's the way it is.
You know what I mean." If the evidence presented is relevant to the
assertion being made and if they are acceptable to the audience hearing
the assertion put forth, then the debater will have met that commitment
to rationality.

With this in mind, the person about to engage in debate will always take
care to assess not only the assertion being made, but the audience to
whom that claim is being presented. You may have done exhaustive
research on a proposition. You may have thought your argument out, have
written a good opening and closed with a logical conclusion. But if you
have failed to take into account the nature of the audience listening to
your assertion, then there is a great likelihood that your argument will
fall upon deaf ears.

Take, for instance, the person whose argument is that predominantly black
inner-city schools are inferior to predominantly white suburban schools.
That individual has built this argument by pointing out the problems of
high absenteeism rates, high drop-out rates, problems with drug
trafficking on and near the campus, little or no parental involvement in the
parent-teacher associations, lax discipline in the classrooms,
and poor student performance on standardized tests. At the same time,
this arguer has failed to take into account that those listening to this argument
live in the inner city, have brothers and sisters, perhaps older relatives who
attended the very schools being disparaged or, in their eyes,
"put down" yet one more time. It is on factors such as this that arguments
are won and lost, where the arguer has failed to take into account the
human dimension of the problem -- the people you are addressing without
taking into account their own emotions about the issue under discussion.

The same holds true for writing an argumentative essay. One becomes impressed
not only by the breadth of the research or the writer's command of
the facts involved, but even moreso by the logic combined with compassion
and insight that the arguer demonstrates. Those who would frame an argument
without taking into account the human element, who would plunge
headlong into the debate without taking time to stop and ask the question,
"Who is my audience and how do they feel about this? How have or will
they be affected by what I have to say?" run the great risk not only of falling short
in their argument, but alienating the audience at the same time.
Where there is alienation, communication cannot take place. Always keep
this in mind as you develop assertions and present reasons for your beliefs:
that people and not walls are taking in your message.

Summary

There are four modes of discourse: narration, description, exposition, and
argumentation. Of the four, argumentation is unquestionably the primal
form of communication as it involves the fine art of persuasion as well.
The argumentative essay may also be referred to as the Assertion-with-
Evidence essay. The person is making an assertion, a statement that says,
"This is so," which he or she then begins to prove through evidence. That
assertion is also known as the proposition (i.e., the main idea of an argu-
mentative essay). This proposition should have at least three patterns
evident within it by which the arguer will develop the argument. Argument
itself may be simply defined as "a reasoned attempt to convince the
audience to accept a particular point of view about a debateable subject or
topic."

The evidence one uses in any argument may be divided into fact and
expert opinion. The evidence can and should take the forms of examples,
details, illustrations, statistics. When developing an argumentative essay,
one has to always beware of fallacies or "illogical reasoning." While there
are many types of fallacies that can and do exist in rhetoric, six (6) basic
ones have been presented here for your review and thinking -- hasty
generalizations, stereotyping, begging the question, name calling, evading
the question, and argumentum ad hominem. In addition, the good
argumentative essay will always try to take into account what the
opposition or contrary position might have to say and include or address
that within the paper.

Equally important to remember is that argument is a social process and
for those who engage in it, there is a commitment ot specific communica-
tion rules: (1) convention of bilaterality; (2) convention of self-risk; (3) the fairness doctrine; and (4) the commitment to rationality. In realizing that argumentation is a social process, the arguer is reminded to never
forget the human factor -- that the audience listening does have an
emotional stake in the subject under debate or dispute. Those who fail to
take this into account, who treat the audience (i.e., the reader or readers,
listeners) like walls rather than human beings will fail in the effort to
convince that group to accept your assertion no matter how ell-organized,
no matter how well-developed or articulated.

Discussion Questions

Before reading this presentation, how would you have defined an argument? Differentiate between your earlier definition of an argument and
the one that emerges from this article.

Develop an argumentative paragraph (either pro or con) on the subject,
"Should Students Be Responsible for Their Learning?" In a separate
paragraph, explain why you chose the particular evidence you did. What
would be the primary objection that someone taking an oppostion position
to you might make, and why? Be specific.

In identifying the six types of fallacies that most often occur in
argumentative writing, provide your own definition and example or
illustration for each.

With respect to the social conventions implicit to argumentation --
bilaterality, self-risk, fairness, and rationality -- apply these to yourself in a self-examination of the way you have attempted argumentation
and argumentative writing prior to now. What do you learn from this
self- assessment?